When comparing Skype Qik vs Signal Private Messenger, the Slant community recommends Signal Private Messenger for most people. In the question“What are the best messaging apps for iOS?”Signal Private Messenger is ranked 10th while Skype Qik is ranked 29th. The most important reason people chose Signal Private Messenger is:

Pros

Pro

Video shooting is easy

A swipe down from the main screen of Qik and a tap on the record button will start recording a video that can be up to 42-seconds long. Once recorded the video can be sent to anyone in the address book.

Pro

Allows canned video responses

Up to 12 five-second videos can be recorded and used as a quick way to respond.

Pro

Truly open and secure, comes from the Open Whisper Systems Team

Backed by people nut about privacy, including

Edward Snowden, Whistleblower and privacy advocate

Laura Poitras, Oscar winning filmmaker and journalist

Bruce Schneier, internationally renowned security technologist

Matt Green, Cryptographer, Johns Hopkins University

Pro

Encrypted voice calling

Unlike many other apps, signal provides not only text messaging but also live encrypted voice calling.

Pro

Free as in both free beer and freedom, not as in "The customer is the product"

Pay Nothing - The development team is supported by community donations and grants. There are no advertisements, and it doesn't cost anything to use.

Cons

Con

Limited to contacts in the address book

It's only possible to send video to contacts in the address book.

Con

Centralized architecture

Signal's server architecture has been partially decentralized since December 2013, when it was announced that the messaging protocol that is used in Signal had successfully been integrated into the Android-based open-source operating system CyanogenMod. As of CyanogenMod 11.0, the client logic is contained in a system app called WhisperPush. According to Open Whisper Systems, "the Cyanogen team runs their own [Signal messaging] server for WhisperPush clients, which federates with [Open Whisper Systems' Signal server], so that both clients can exchange messages with each-other seamlessly". The WhisperPush source code is available under the GPLv3 license. In January 2016, however, the CyanogenMod team announced that they will be discontinuing WhisperPush on February 1, and recommended that its users switch to Signal.[35] After this, Signal's server architecture will be entirely centralized.